The two men started to laugh, still speaking in their native tongue, apparently finding this accident utterly hilarious. And now she really was feeling the cold.
‘Fine!’ she announced. ‘Be rude! Be not injured! Just show me and my sister the way to walk to get to the hotel I’m meant to be staying in!’
More laughter and now it was starting to get on Orla’s nerves.
‘Right, well, thank you for the lift most of the way here, and the added hell ride at the end, but we will be fine from now on!’ She wrenched open the back door. ‘Come on, Erin, let’s go.’
‘Orla,’ Erin mumbled as if she had something stuck in her throat.
The smell. The visual. Orla didn’t need an explanation but Erin managed one anyway.
‘I’ve been sick.’
8
Despite all her bullishness about being perfectly capable of walking out into the winter-near-wilderness on her own and finding her way, Orla was still not quite in the zone of what was happening right now. Her trainers were filling with snow, her feet both feeling like the straw in a Slush Puppie and her brain didn’t seem to be working properly. Because, if her brainwasworking properly, she would have been finding the fact that a vomit-covered Erin was being piggy-backed by a stranger something to comment on. Instead, she was saying nothing. It seemed every bit of energy had to be conserved for simply existing in this environment. And she should have known this. She was not a rookie when it came to travelling to climate-challenged places! All she could do was blame the lack of preparation she’d made. Not her fault.
‘Are you still alive?’
The question came from the stranger who was carrying her sister on his back.
‘I… don’t know,’ Orla answered. Why had she said that? Apparently close-to-brain-freeze made you dumb.
‘Ha! Very good. But at least you are now aware that death is always a possibility on this mountain.’
‘What?’
This had come from Erin who had said nothing until now, even when the stranger had lifted her out of the car with one arm and hoisted her onto his back like she was a rucksack.
‘You are inappropriately dressed for the weather,’ the stranger reiterated.
‘OK!’ Orla exclaimed. ‘We get it! But, to counter that, we did not know that the person picking us up from the airport was going to end up having no control over his vehicle, cause a collision and leave us to walk in these conditions.’
Gerard had remained in the car. He had already been wearing a base layer, two jumpers, a thermal coat and had produced a flask of something from the glove box. His preparation was much better than theirs. A vehicle was being sent to pick them up and go back for him but the stranger had already told them that staying still was not an option and they may as well begin the walk that was only a mile or so and they would flag down their aid when it appeared.
‘Ah,’ the stranger said, striding on like he wasn’t carrying anything on his back at all. ‘You are one of those people who blames everyone else for the situation they find themselves in.’
‘What? No, I do not! I?—’
‘You are getting angry,’ the man said, a hint of amusement in his tone as Orla tried to keep up with his lengthy steps.
‘If you think this is angry then you are so, so wrong, believe me.’
‘I am never wrong,’ the man answered. ‘So, we will see.’
‘Now, wait a second?—’
‘She is getting kind of angry now,’ Erin said, her arms around the neck of this man, face half buried in the hood of his coat. ‘Hervoice gets like a politician when they’re spitting lies to cover their arse.’
The man laughed at Erin’s comment and Orla could feel her body begin to fizz with annoyance. The laugh wasn’t an unattractive sound, but it wasn’t stopping. He was reacting like Erin was the best comedian who had delivered the killer one-liner to end all one-liners…
‘Right, well, where’s the vehicle meant to be coming to get us and where is this village?! The roadblock to secure the sanctity of the square can’t have been this far away… and we didn’t wheel spin for miles!’
The man stopped walking then, turning a one-eighty with Erin, until he was looking at her.
‘Are you going to stamp your feet?’ he asked. ‘Scream until it echoes? Maybe cry a little? Boo hoo hoo?’
For the last sentence he had put on a voice akin to something someone might use if they were talking to a three-year-old or their most cherished teddy. Just how patronising was this Frenchman? And why was she even here when she should be in the office, in the warm, watching Sonil shove chocolates in his mouth until his airway was compromised! Because her boss had ordered her to. Because she’d had literally no choice in bringing her sister with her. Because her dad was struggling with retirement and possibly addiction and there were money issues. Because the universe was not currently giving her a break, it was giving her a pregnant freaking reindeer!
